Diabetes Care: What to Expect

Whether you have type 1, type 2 or gestational diabetes, the diabetes team at Henry Ford Health can help. You can expect a personalized treatment and management plan for your individual needs.

Diabetes specialists at Henry Ford

When you come to Henry Ford for diabetes care, you’ll work with one of our diabetes specialists to develop the right treatment plan for you. Depending on your overall health, you may need oral medications or insulin therapy to keep your blood glucose (blood sugar) levels in normal ranges. Our goal is to manage the condition and minimize its symptoms, so that you can enjoy your best possible health.

By controlling your blood glucose levels over time, you can prevent many serious complications of diabetes. If you do develop diabetes complications, your diabetes care team provides expert diagnosis and comprehensive treatment planning. We work collaboratively with other specialty physicians depending on your health needs, such as kidney, heart, vascular, eye and transplant specialists.

Diabetes nurse practitioners

Our nurse practitioners, many of whom are also Certified Diabetes Educators (CDEs), work closely with you and your physician for your ongoing care.

The nurse practitioner:

• Performs examinations
• Designs an insulin medication treatment plan
• Helps you plan for times when you need to modify your insulin treatment
• Teaches you how to use an insulin pump
• Provides ongoing care for diabetes management problems that may occur between office visits

Our nurse practitioners also participate in diabetes research studies, providing patients with diabetes ongoing access to the most advanced therapies and innovative new devices.

Registered nurses

At Henry Ford, our nurses provide on-site blood tests for patients with diabetes to help track blood glucose measurements and A1C measurements over time. Many of our nurses are also CDEs who provide diabetes self-management education programs to help and your family manage daily care.

Registered dietitians

Our registered dietitians (RDs) help you and your family learn about healthy foods and how food choices affect your nutrition, energy, and blood glucose (sugar) levels. Working with you to understand your food preferences, health goals and lifestyle, our RDs develop personalized meal plans specifically for you.

Daily self-management for diabetes

In addition to medical care, we offer Diabetes Care Centers to help you with diabetes self-management. Here, a team of experts from multiple specialties teach you how to control your blood glucose with food, exercise and medication.

We customize a self-management plan tailored to your overall health needs. Your plan includes recommendations for:

• Healthy eating: Learning how food affects your glucose levels helps you make the right choices for what and when to eat.
• Exercise: Physical activity helps control glucose and can help you maintain a healthy weight.
• Monitoring: Keeping track of your blood glucose tells you how you’re doing with diet, exercise and medication (for those taking medication or insulin).
• Reacting: If you develop high or low blood sugar, you may need to take immediate action. We show you what to do if you have abnormally high or low blood glucose results.
• Regular checkups: For people with any type of diabetes, it’s important to visit your physician regularly to monitor your blood pressure, kidney function, eye health, blood glucose levels and feet.